YOBS vandalised new flower towers within days of them being delivered.

Attempts to make Hyndburn a more attractive place by placing flower towers throughout the borough were thwarted when vandals struck.

The flower towers were only delivered on Thursday and Friday as part of the council's Floral Market Towns initiative to improve the borough.

They were placed in front of Mercer Hall and the clock tower in Great Harwood, by the Co-op gardens, the war memorial and opposite the Co-op supermarket in Oswaldtwistle, on Barnes Square in Clayton-le-Moors, and along Broadway, Union Street and outside the town hall, market hall and Scaitcliffe House in Accrington.

But over the weekend, flower towers placed on the Broadway in Accrington town centre had already been vandalised.

Observer reader Bill McWilliams, of Shaftesbury Avenue, Great Harwood, said: "I went to Accrington on Monday morning and the brain dead had been at the new flower displays on Broadway.

"The flower pots were all over the place.

"The people who do this, I don't know what they get out of it.

"The council want to put gates up at each end of Broadway and lock it at night to keep the animals out."

Council leader Peter Britcliffe, said: "There was an attempt to vandalise some of the flower towers and it has been rectified.

"We don't intend to give in to vandals. We can't stop doing nice things because of these mindless morons.

"We have, as a result, asked the people manning the community safety CCTV camera to keep a special watch.

"If we find anyone deliberately trying to spoil the flower towers we will prosecute them."

He added: "After the next week they will be complimented by the normal hanging baskets to make Accrington and the surrounding townships a nicer, better place to live in the weeks to come.

"It's just another sign that this area, Accrington and surrounding townships, are moving into a new era."